Creating a Spring Cherry Blossom Tree with a Recycled Christmas Decoration

Over the holidays, I'd created a "Christmas tree" as a display piece for a couple classes I was giving on how to make paper rosettes. After the classes, I used it as a Christmas decoration at home to display some vintage glass ornaments and some paper rosettes.  

I loved how it looked and as I packed away the decorations after Christmas, I could not bear to throw the tree away.  The branches were graceful and beautiful.  I wanted to do something to recycle my project and to give new life to my little tree.  

 I found my inspiration when I saw a cherry tree in full bloom.  The blossoms were light and ethereal and I knew I could recreate a cool cherry blossom tree at home to bring a bit of spring indoors.

First, I brushed the trunk and branches of the tree with maple gel stain. The gel stain is somewhat translucent and can be brushed on and wiped off to create natural looking wood texture and color.  It made the tree I'd spray painted white for Christmas look more natural.  

Then, I needed to create cherry blossoms. I used white crepe paper party streamers from the dollar store. For this project, card stock was too heavy to use for the blossoms, they needed to feel light and airy...and tissue paper was too thin. Crepe paper is textured and I thought it would hold up well for coloring and cutting and would hold it's shape when "molded" into blossoms.   

  I used craft spray mists to color strips of crepe paper. Misting gave me gradient color variations and tiny spots on the crepe paper.  

I cut the colored crepe paper with a flower die template, then molded the cut shapes into flowers.  Here's a tip, when you're going to make a lot of flowers, work on waxed paper.  Put drops of glue in rows on waxed paper, make your flowers, then stick them to the dots of glue on the waxed paper.  When you're ready to use the flowers, they'll peel off the waxed paper easily.  

I made a couple hundred cherry blossoms.  

Next, I created leaves.  I used a leaf die template to cut tiny leaves.  As they unfurl in the spring, leaves are very light and delicate.  Card stock seemed too heavy to use to create the leaves...so I used coffee filters.  Coffee filters are light and translucent like fresh new leaves.  I misted coffee filters with craft sprays, then die cut a bunch of tiny leaf shapes.  

To affix the leaves to the branches, I rolled them on one end, crumpled them and used a tiny drop of glue to attach them along the branches. They look cool.  

To attach the flowers to the branches, I poured glue into a plastic cup, and used a popsicle stick to apply a tiny drop of glue to each blossom, then placed it on the tree.  I arranged the blossoms in small clusters, just like they look on a real cherry tree.  

And repeated the process until the tree looked like it was in full bloom. 

You'll notice, some of the flowers have a dark center.  To make the flowers look realistic, I "dotted" some of them in the center with a magenta colored marker.  I didn't really pay attention to the detail of dotting the flowers, I simply went back and randomly added a tiny splash of color to the blossoms.  

After all the blossoms were attached to the tree, I filled the bucket it's in with sphagnum moss and lichens.  You can find these at the craft store in the floral department.  It looks really natural and fresh, like spring.  

I also added a small birds nest beside the bucket...it feels like spring.  You can find the birds nest with eggs at the craft store floral department too.  

I love how this project turned out.  It feels light, and fresh, like a breath of spring.

The crepe paper blossoms are translucent and catch and reflect light...

and help to brighten up my work room in these last days of winter as we're all awaiting spring.  

Thank you for stopping by today...and I hope you'll like this project and be inspired to create something to brighten up your home for spring.  Feel free to leave a comment or ask a question...I like your feedback. 

til next time,

Ken

Spring Terrariums to Brighten These Cold Winter Days

OK, so Punxsutawawney Phil saw his shadow this week and predicted 6 more weeks of winter. And, so far his prediction seems to be accurate. It's snowing almost everywhere in the United States tonight. It's just about this time of year that I really start longing for spring. So, to help with the winter doldrums, I thought it would be cool to create a little spring indoors by creating some spring table top terrariums. 

This is fun little project and I guarantee, it will help brighten these long cold days of winter.  

I started with a few things I had around the house, mismatched white plates and saucers, 

and antique linen table runner, 

a collection of jars, cake plates and cloches, don't worry if you don't have cloches...you can repurpose candy jars or mayonnaise jars.  

Make sure to wash them and dry them with a linen dish cloth...you'll want them to reflect as much light as possible...when the jars are sparkling clean, they will  make your room seem brighter.  

Over the winter, I've been buying little spring flowers and bird nests when I see them at the craft store.  I found grape hyacinths and paper whites wrapped in twigs. I knew I'd use them for something. 

And I found a bag of sheet moss, it's green and looks like spring.

I even dragged out a nest I found in my driveway last spring, I'd been saving it for something.  

After I'd gathered all my materials, I started arranging my terrarium tablescape by placing the linen table runner on the table, then by arranging the plates and jars on the table. 

It looks great if you can stack a jar on a tiny glass stand.  

Then, it was pretty simple, I arranged my floral pieces on plates with sheet moss, and pieces of lichens, then covered them with cloches. 

And repeated with all the jars, and cloches until I was satisfied with the arrangement.  You could use live plants, I chose to use silk florals as my dining room doesn't get a lot of natural light and I think the moss and silk florals look pretty good under glass. Plus, they will be really low maintenance for me.   

I placed a small sphagnum lined nest on the table next to the terrariums...it looks great! A nest with eggs under a cake plate is beautiful and makes me think of spring.  

A few small pieces of lichens and moss look great under a tiny cloche and gives the illusion of a green growing plants in a terrarium.  

A nest of "robin's eggs" are one of the harbingers of spring and look brilliant under a cloche. 

I love the effect the terrariums give in my dining room...they really help to remind me that spring is only a few weeks away, in the meantime, I have a springy looking tablescape that will brighten these long cold, snowy days of winter.  

Thank you for stopping by today, I hope you'll find some inspiration here to bring some spring into your home while it's still snowy outside!  

til next time,

Ken

Handmade from the Heart, an Oliver Family Christmas Tradition

Hello blog friends and welcome to day 12 of D's Paper Studio's, 12 Days of Home for the Holidays. It’s been really cool reading all about the traditions of each of the artists who participated this year.

Handmade gifts are from the heart, and there’s no better way to share your love and joy for the season than to give something that you’ve made by hand.  In our family we have a longstanding tradition of handmade Christmas ornaments.

Hand-stitched felt teddy bears, painted wooden ornaments, handmade photo ornaments, some nearly 50 years old hang on our Christmas trees, and every year when we get them out to hang them, it’s an opportunity to share and re-live the memories of Christmas’ past.

This year, since we were all together at Thanksgiving, I took the opportunity to share our tradition with some of the younger members of our family.  We created Christmas rosettes that are beautiful enough to hang as ornaments, but could also be used as Christmas banners, present toppers or even clustered together as wreaths.

I knew there would be some teaching opportunities with the younger ones.  We got to learn about cutting, measuring, and folding, and my nieces even mastered the scoreboard.

  

     

Our Christmas rosette ornaments turned out beautifully...and once we got started, everyone created more than one. We kept our craft table set up and going all throughout Thanksgiving weekend.  The kids were so excited, they made them for their friends, for their teachers and lots of their own tree at home. 

And, when we discovered that we could use die cut photos to decorate the Christmas rosettes, the ornaments became another way that we could share memories of holidays past. 

Creating Christmas rosettes was really one of the most fun ornament projects we've ever done in our family.  We ended up with lots of new ornaments to share and lots of new ornaments for our own Christmas trees. And, together, we created some Christmas memories that we can treasure forever. 

Our Thanksgiving weekend was really special this year, we had everyone from our generation of Olivers together at one place at the same time...it was something that had not happened in over 15 years...so we were very blessed to share the family time together and to continue our family tradition of handmade Christmas ornaments with cousins and younger members of our family. 

Thank you for letting me share our Oliver family tradition of making Christmas ornaments. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season this year, and make some time to create and give something handmade.  It's a wonderful tradition that is from the heart and will bring joy to everyone for years to come.

Merry Christmas,
Ken

Vintage Handmade Cards with Craft Attitude

Hi there, thank you for stopping by today, it's my turn on the Craft Attitude Blog Hop.  I was really excited to add some "attitude" to vintage handmade cards.

Since I knew the Craft Attitude film was transparent, I knew it would give me the opportunity to add texture and visual interest behind whatever I chose to work with.  I chose to reproduce some original collage pieces I'd created earlier this year.  The originals have embossed copper backgrounds, and dimensional pieces that are kind of bulky to use as cards. I've never reproduced any collage piece I've created so I knew I'd get to explore some new techniques.  Using the Quilt Attitude would allow me to transfer my scanned images onto an antique linen napkin, thus adding a linen texture behind my collage image.

I used the Flip Pal Mobile Scanner to scan my original collage pieces.

Then printed the scanned images onto Quilt Attitude film. Applied the film to antique linen, as the package directed...

You can see where the linen texture is visible through the transparency of the Quilt Attitude Film.  I like the texture it added when I reproduced the collages and applied them to linen.  It looks like the image is printed on a canvas.

To create the cards, I die cut the linen with Spellbinders Grand Calibur machine and Spellbinders Card Creator Die Templates.

To create the card bases, I recycled and die cut manila file folders; It's a cool way to reuse something that is still usable.  

Working with Craft Attitude on this project was really cool...it let me digitally reproduce a 3-D collage to create a 2-D card...and let me alter the original image by transferring it to antique linen...the texture is great behind the collage image.  

Thank you again for stopping by today on the Craft Attitude Blog Hop...I loved using the products and I see lots of possibilities with Quilt Attitude...handmade fabric Christmas ornaments, fabric gift bags, photo throw pillows...

You'll want to see how everyone else has used Craft Attitude too.

Jonathan Fong’s Christmas Roses
Trudi Sissons’ Collage Tutorial
Candie Cooper’s Personalized Ornaments
Nov. 27 – Tammy OConnell
Julie McGuffee’s Glass Block
Dec. 5 – Kathy Cano-Murillo
Dec. 9 - Ken Oliver (You are Here)
Dec. 12 - Cathie Filian

til next time, stay inspired,

Ken

Untitled Acrylic on Canvas

Untitled

12" x 12"

Acrylic on Canvas

I'm branching out and experimenting with some new painting techniques. Textured molding paste, acrylic paints and wax pastels gave some cool effects on this untitled 12" x 12" canvas.  

Embossed Copper Tag Deck

This embossed copper tag deck is one of those projects that I love to make.  When you make this, you'll add some great new "mixed media" techniques to your arsenal of creative tricks. You will love the results.  

The techniques I used are all pretty standard paper crafting techniques.  The trick is to apply them to different substrates or media.  

I embossed and inked kraft*tex™ for the base of each tag. 

Then cut, embossed and applied patina solution to copper sheets. 

Used some basic collage techniques to create the tags.

And added some additional ephemera, findings and trinkets to complete the collage for each tag.   

To finish the tag deck, I bound them all together with a bronze binding ring.  They look great and have a real vintage feel.  I like this project so much that I'm planning to teach it as a class this fall.  If you like it, please let me know, I'd love to share the class with you and your friends.  

Thank you for stopping by today.  I hope you'll be inspired to go make something beautiful.

Ken

Resources:

Spellbinders Paper Arts; Die Templates and Embossing Folders

C&T Publishing; kraft*tex™ Kraft Paper Fabric

Graphic 45; Scrapbook Paper